In this issue ...

Editor's Choices

May is all about cardigan choices. These patterns have unusual
construction, garter stitch, diamond motifs, and are generally speedy knits.

Littletheorem

Queen's Park Cardigan

Dorothy Winn’s pretty summer Queen’s Park Cardigan is knit from the top
down on larger than usual needles, for the weight of the yarn, to create a
drapey, wearable cardigan for cold offices or summer nights. Bigger
needles means it’s faster to knit, too.

Classic Elite Yarns

I Do (age 10 up)

I Do, in 6 sizes from 31” to 51” bust, is a pretty little cardigan for special
occasions. The lace bordering the button front and hems is easy to do. The pattern is
rated Intermediate but a little experience with shaping and lace would make
it achievable by an enthusiastic beginner.

Alfa

dewdrop cardigan

Such a simple cardigan to knit but with such special flourishes. The
dropped stitches give it a carefree attitude that contrasts charmingly with
the lace hems and dewdrop shaped beads.

Sirdar

Cardigan

WEB EXCLUSIVE

The teardrop shaped neckline is a lovely frame for the face on this easy-toknit
cropped cardi. The lace pattern is easy to memorize, the shaping is
flattering but not challenging, and the pattern can be created in sizes from
32” to 54”.

Fiddlesticks Knitting

Diamond Lace Drops

Dorothy Siemens can be counted on to create beautifully executed,
feminine designs. The lace diamond shapes at waist and wrist are
particularly flattering on this gently shaped cardigan.

Louet North America

Sierra

There’s something so appealing about fine yarn and big needles. You get
great drape, airiness, and speedy knitting. Bergen is 2 identical pieces, part
sheer, part opaque, joined with a three needle bind off. Make it for just
about anyone in 6 sizes from 32” to 52”.

Perl Grey

Mieka

Here’s another cardigan with unusual construction. Designer Adrienne
Thomas describes it as "a stretchy, seamless, reversible, topsy-turvy cardi
knit sideways in one piece”. Check out the photos on the pattern page to
see how Mieka looks when worn upside down.

Lanaknits Designs

Lace Diamond Trellis Pullover & Cardigan

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Lanaknits' Lace Diamond Trellis Pullover and Cardigan is another knit side-to-side
garment featuring garter stitch. When knit in this direction the effect
of garter stitch is surprisingly slimming and flattering.

Here's Crochet!

Crochet by Darleen Hopkins

Modern Tote (in crochet)

The Firefly Hook

Open Sky Shawl

Ruth Maddock

Lacy Summer Bolero

Charles Voth

Peacock Tracks Scarf (Crochet)

Universal Yarn

Dewdrops Tank (crochet)

Sirdar

Cardigan and Top (crochet)

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Lindsey Stephens

Onodrim Shawl

10 Hours or Less

Desert Dusk (crochet)

Sundresses

When you search for “sundress” on Patternfish, it’s just ones for little girls
that appear. They are cute and they can double as tunics in cool weather.

Kira K Designs

Moppet Sundress (ages 1 - 4)

Jane Richmond

Elsie Sundress

Jil Eaton/ Minnowknits

Sunflower

Fiber Trends

Sisters (1 - 4 years)

Big Sky Knitting Designs

Annalise (birth to age 3)

Frogginette Knitting Patterns

Summer Into Fall

Designer of the Month: Nina Machlin Dayton

It is no surprise to learn that Nina Machlin Dayton is a perfectionist who finds joy and
pleasure in acquiring the skills and knowledge to make her designs the best they can
possibly be. Her father was an artist and she grew up watching him translate creative
ideas into tangible pieces of art. While his media were photography, sculpture, and
printmaking, hers are knitted fabric and patterns.

The influence of art in her designs is clear in these two patterns, the
Klimt Hat,
inspired by the colours and paintings of Gustav Klimt, and the
Stickley Hat,
influenced by the Craftsman era furniture of Gustav Stickley.

Nina Machlin Dayton

Klimt Hat

Nina Machlin Dayton

Stickley Hat

Here’s more from Nina Machlin Dayton.

It takes commitment, passion, and discipline to become an established
designer. What drives you?
I’m driven by all of the ideas in my head clambering to get out. My father was an
artist, so the creative process has always been a part of my life.

I love the challenge that each idea creates for me; the chance to figure it out, to pick
at the puzzle of how to get the idea in my head translated into knitted fabric. It does
take discipline and hard work – months can go into producing a single knitting pattern.
The knowledge base and skills necessary to do it well can take a long time to learn.

Nina Machlin Dayton

Vita Cloche (child to adult)

What was your greatest personal challenge?
Perfectionism! My first professional knitting job was back in the 1980’s when a dear
friend got me a job hand knitting for a couturier designer. When she learned that I
had a good eye she put me on her one-of-a-kind line - I was given a bag of gorgeous
yarns, all different gauges and colors, and a schematic of the finished sweater
dimensions, and it was my job to create a sweater to those dimensions using the yarns
in whatever way I liked. It was a wonderful learning experience, but my perfectionism
made it a terrible job for me – I think I changed my mind and un-knit, as much as I
made decisions and knit, because I kept getting other ideas that seemed better to my
eye. Even handing in my finished sweater every week I would still be thinking “I wish I
had used the blue closer to the neckline….”

This is much less of a problem for me now, especially as the deadlines are largely self-imposed,
and there is time to change my mind before casting on. But there are still
those perfectionistic tendencies! I think I redesigned the beading pattern on
Vita Cloche
5 times before deciding on the final design.

Nina Machlin Dayton

Chesterfield Neckwarmer

What inspires you?
I find inspiration everywhere, and in everything – sometimes from the yarn itself,
other times from books, paintings, nature, history, film. The
Chesterfield Neckwarmer
was inspired by the collar of a coat I own, the
Melanie Shawl
by an Alfred Hitchcock film. The
Orvieto Hat
came from a photo of a city in Italy, and the
Hunts Lane Cowl
from the cobblestones on a street near where I grew up. And the eBook,
The Best of Times,
is a collection inspired by different characters from the novels of Charles Dickens.

Nina Machlin Dayton

Melanie Shawl

Nina Machlin Dayton

Orvieto Hat (child to adult)

Nina Machlin Dayton

Hunts Lane Cowl

Nina Machlin Dayton

The Best of Times - A Dickensian Winter Collection

I have many more ideas that I could ever find time to see through to completion, so
for me it is always an exercise in choosing what to follow through on and what to put
aside for later. I am finding a lot of inspiration in vintage fashion and history in
general, especially in the period from about 1915 through 1935, Edwardian through
pre-WWII, and have a collection of hats scheduled for release next fall inspired by this
time.

And color! I am so obsessed with color. As a child one of my favorite things to play
with was a sample book left over from my father’s days as a commercial photographer
that contained samples of many colors of gels that could be put over spotlights to
change the color of the light. I spent hours staring at the world through red and blues,
oranges and purples, greens and yellows. I just love to submerge and surround myself
in color and texture!

Do you have a particular customer in mind when you start a design?
The overarching vision of my customer is someone who shares my enthusiasm for
creating something that is as much fun to wear as it is to make.

Nina Machlin Dayton

Faberge Cowl

My customers come in all ages and experience levels. I try to write my patterns with a
clarity that makes them accessible to people at different experience levels. Some of
my patterns, like the
Faberge Cowl,
were designed to be teaching patterns – it was written to
teach beaded knitting – but I try to make them interesting enough to be enjoyed by
more experienced knitters as well, and to produce a beautiful finished piece that the
knitter has been able to make their own.

What did you have to learn or unlearn to be a designer? Were there things in
your life you needed to change to accommodate it?
The process of taking a vision from my head to a finished piece of art came fairly
naturally to me. But there was so much to learn about the specifics, as there is in any
field. So much that goes into one knitting pattern, much more than the average
knitter realizes. I love learning, so I am always reading a book, taking a class,
researching something, so that I can learn how to better do some part of what I do
and provide the best possible pattern to my customers. In a market as crowded as
ours is, I take very seriously the fact that my customers are putting their faith in me
when they choose my patterns. I am grateful for that and work hard to not disappoint
them.

What are your best selling designs?
This is a hard question to answer, as different ones sell well in different venues and in
different categories. The
Montague Street Cowl,
Cantare Cowl,
and the
Bridgeport Cowl
are my best selling cowls.

In Shawls,
Roo
and
Impari
are the most popular these days, but the lacey and beaded lace ones do well too.

Nina Machlin Dayton

Roo Shawl

Nina Machlin Dayton

Impari Shawlette

The internet has become so important to selling knitting and crochet patterns.
Are there any aspects of it that you think are harmful?
Such an interesting question. I think that in all things in life there is good and less
good in everything. The internet has done some amazing things for knitting designers –
first and foremost allowing us to offer our patterns to knitters all over the world,
something that wasn’t even conceivable before the internet. The internet’s reach has
also made offering patterns to the public an approachable hobby for people with
wonderful ideas who would previously have created those projects just for family and
friends.

Having both professional designers and those working on it for fun or as a hobby can
create a very exciting and stimulating environment for designers to interact with each
other. But it can also create some conflicts of interest.

Over the last few years there has been a huge increase in the number of patterns
available, and a very wide range in the their quality. Those doing it for fun have very
different goals than those of us making our living doing it, and this has had a large
impact on the industry, especially with regard to the public perception of the quality
of Indie Design, and the number of free patterns available.

I think that is one of the reasons that curated collections such as Patternfish are so
important today. The fact that the collections available on Patternfish are curated
guarantees the customers that all the patterns are of a high level of quality,
regardless of the motivation of the designer creating them.

Where do you think you and your business will be in 10 years? Do you have any
unfulfilled wishes or dreams for your business or yourself?
I’d like to move at least some of my teaching online in the next few years. I love
teaching, especially teaching design to newer designers and helping them enter the
field with their patterns at a high level. I would love to be able to offer those classes,
and that mentoring, to people all over instead of those just local to me. I do a lot of
mentoring online, but would love to make it into something more formal.

How did you come to the decision to list your patterns with Patternfish?
Patternfish offers something to the customer that other sales platforms don’t. When I
was a kid there was the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval that you would see on
some products. When you saw that you knew that you were getting something that
had been tested and found to have real value. I see Patternfish as something like
that, for the knit and crochet world, and so I was very happy to be accepted as a
Patternfish designer.

Our Newest Designers and Publishers

In April, we welcomed 4 new designers to Patternfish.

Little NutMeg Productions

Sivia

Meghan Jones delights in designing patterns with a little something extra.
Sivia is a shawl that will challenge those new to lace, but the rewards of
creating this gorgeous lace, twisted stitch, and cabled accessory will be
with you forever.

Palomino Sunset was designed to take full advantage of highly variegated
yarns. It’s an unusual design with yarn overs that are picked up to create
bow-like lace that contrasts beautifully with the picot edging.

Theressa Silver of ArgentGal Designs has played with the ideas of shawl
and vest and created By Popular Demand, a garment/accessory that will
keep you warm all winter, have the elegance of a shawl, but not fall off your
shoulders.

Golden Triangles celebrates the golden ratio phi, but you don’t need to be a
math wizard to appreciate the practicality of using the ratio to produce
spiralling triangles. To fully appreciate the structure and practicality of both
these designs, be sure to check out the slide show on the pattern pages.

Jessica Anderson’s Just Be Held is an oversized shawl that will be
comforting to knit as well as to wear. The stockinet colour-striped body
lends itself to knit night, television, and car knitting while the lace border will
require just a bit more concentration. It’s a 6 row repeat, 3 of which are purl
rows.

Anderson loves knitted skirts. Her English Rose, in 6 sizes, increases
gently from knitted waistband to the twirl-encouraging eyelet and lace
ruffled hem.

Solène Le Roux’s Aran weight Soviet Hat was inspired by the austere
beauty of Soviet buildings in Warsaw. The cables are rich and dense and
achievable by a knitter with some cable experience.

It takes just one skein of sock yarn, preferably a tonal or mildly variegated
yarn, to make the lacey Treboul Shawl. The 2 simple lace patterns are
rarely seen together and they contrast intriguingly with the garter stitch. It’s
an easy shawl for beginner lace knitters and can double as a scarf.

From the Ambassador's Desk

Gayle Clow

It’s sometimes hard to define exactly what it is that we like about a pattern, but it is important to look closely
and analyze it, so that we’re satisfied with the outcome. Industry insiders know that many patterns are chosen for
the colour of the photographed sample and that blue is the favourite colour. When we, as purchasers, are aware of that,
it makes it easier to remove colour as part of the equation and explore what else we like.

Here are a couple of my favourites and what I discovered when I pushed
myself and looked harder to find out why.

The Knitting Vortex

Diamond Lanes

Jennifer Dessau's Diamond Lanes intrigued me from the moment I first
saw. it. It is my favourite colour currently, but the precision of the
geometry and the lace outline encasing the body of diamond shapes
appeals. I like, too, that the garter stitch of the border is repeated in the
diamond shapes. As a whole, the pattern appeals because of the cohesion
borne of thoughtful design.

Nashua Handknits

Cable and Moss Cardigan

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Here’s another one I like. I do love blue and cables. But what else? The self
edging at the hems, not the usual ribbing, appeals, as do the nicely set-in
sleeves and the contrast of large and small cables. And then there’s the
moss stitch, another of my favourites.